


I've Got Guns in My Head

by Puniyo



Series: The Chosen One [2]
Category: SKAM (France)
Genre: Allusion to depression, Dreams and Remembrances, Fluff and Angst, Give me Eliott season 5, M/M, Stream of Consciousness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-18
Updated: 2019-04-18
Packaged: 2020-01-16 01:13:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,814
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18510913
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Puniyo/pseuds/Puniyo
Summary: Eliott fights his own inner demons and insecurities... even in his dreams.





	I've Got Guns in My Head

**Author's Note:**

> Dear all, another piece to fight another episode of mine. I believe that everyone has their own experiences with less happy moments in their lives and they all translate a lot of times to these feelings of unworthiness and guilt. This is a piece inspired by those moments BUT I want to tell to all of you out there feeling blue, things will and do get better! You are not alone! 
> 
> I thought of writing this in screenplay format too but I can be a very wordy person as well. I hope it's not too confusing.
> 
> Title inspire by the song 'Spirits' by The Strumbellas

The tip of the pencil is well sharpened and it glides in the surface of the paper with a nimble line that crosses two dots in the middle of the yellow canvas but it’s nothing like the spines of a curled hedgehog, and he scribbles it all in a violent drag, slashing the squared post-it into two uneven halves. He is a child, a spoiled infant refusing to eat a slice of bread and gashing it into pieces to feed the stray dogs instead of quenching his own hunger. It is the twentieth, the thirtieth, he has lost count of the amount of sheets he has plucked from the rainbow pile and he throws this new torn memo to the mountain on the floor next to the coffee table, the neon pink and green papers mocking him of his inability to draw.

Eliott takes a deep breath as he sits on the only cushion in the room, his back leaning on the rustic leather sofa, one that his parents wanted to sell since the first time they had laid their eyes on its grotesque design, as they would call it. He insisted in keeping it, a strange attachment to the piece of furniture, but all he could think now was how to burn the fabric and the wooden foundation to ashes, and the ashes to nothing. Eliott takes another breath, one that lasts more than a couple of seconds and he raises the pencil again to another sheet. A racoon this time, his spiritual _raton laveur_ , masked like a mysterious superhero and a tail that could wrap a cypress tree in bloom, two if he really wanted.

Except it is not lines that he draws but stains, dirty smudges of carbon, an eye tweaked out of its socket, a grey blot that darkens which each passing second until all the marks converges into an abstract abyss digging down, deeper and deeper. He stares at the void and the void glares back at him, inviting him, _come closer_ , it whispers at his ears, _play with me_ , it chants to him like a holy hymn. _You are nothing_ , Eliott shakes his head but he agrees with this voice, his face already glued to the paper, the powdered graphite meeting the tip of his nose.

‘What are you drawing?’

Lucas sits in front of him, a mug of hot coffee (the trail of steam waving in circles he could never paint), as Eliott straightens his posture, crumbling the adhesive memo under his grip. He tries to smile but his lips do not obey.

‘Nothing. Just a few reminders.’

‘Are all those,’ the young man points at the scrunched paper balls as he takes a careful sip of the pungent liquid, ‘also reminders? I didn’t know you had such poor memory.’ He launches for the navy blue abandoned post-it just next to his knee.

‘Don’t!’ Eliott almost regrets the call that comes out as a shout as Lucas flinches, dropping the scribbled drawing. ‘Just don’t.’

‘What is wrong?’ His boyfriend reaches for his cheek but he darts away from it, the guilt of his lack of control possessing him. ‘Eliott?’

‘Nothing. It’s really nothing.’ It’s an aberration the monstrous creature he had sketched, not the most beautiful hedgehog he had envisioned. It was like him, a dozen of etched strings pulled together to resemble something merely alive. An atrocity that did not deserve to even exist. ‘Just leave it alone. It’s nothing. I will clean them soon.’ He stares at the clean piece of paper on his lap, not once looking at Lucas as he pretends to be absorbed in his unforeseen moment of inspiration.

‘Tell me.’

‘It’s nothing.’

‘I want to know.’ It was all about him, a hedgehog sleeping, a hedgehog on a swing, a hedgehog playing piano, a hedgehog serving a volleyball, a hedgehog waiting for a kiss.

‘Please.’

‘Were you drawing me?’ He wants to tell him, the way his mouth curves into a hiding smirk when he is embarrassed, the way he twirls on the balls of his feet when he is too excited, the way his eyelid twitches when he is having a good dream.

‘Stop it.’

‘How many did you draw? What was it about?’ And yet he can’t, words have failed him and now his pictures too. Everything betrays him. Everyone betrays him. ‘Tell me, Eliott. Tell me!’

‘Stop being annoying!’

The taller man hits his fists onto the surface of the table, the cup of coffee tilting from the impact and spilling the dark concoction all over the younger man’s lap. Lucas withdraws his hand immediately as the heat of the liquid burns his fingers and a faint hiss escapes his lips. For brief seconds, all Eliott can hear are the drops of coffee dripping to the floor, one by one, matched with his erratic pulse. He shakes his head and yet, his whole body is paralyzed, rooted to the carpeted ground, a leftover trunk from the wintry season – more dead than alive.

‘I am sorry, Lucas.’

The living is empty though, he being the only presence in those surroundings. ‘Lucas?’ Eliott turns to the side, only the closed window behind the almost transparent curtains, behind him, more walls and a patch of paint that would probably peel off if the weather turned humid. He even looks at the ceiling as he searches instinctually for every single corner and crevice. ‘Lucas?’

The loud thud of the front door closing is the last sound he hears before the world turns dark.

 

 

Eliott wakes up with a grasp that lodges on his throat, shooting his spine up into a rather uncomfortable sitting posture. He leans forward, coughing once to expel that bubble of air and he coughs again, harder and harder, until oxygen renews his lungs with the essence of the living. There is a bitter taste on his tongue, of bile that he almost vomited, and the metallic taste of iron at the back of his palate. His vision is fogged with the thin, wet sheen over his eyes, and he slumps back to his pillow, the faint scent of chamomile relaxing the tense grip on the bridge of his nose and temples.

It must be afternoon already, probably in the finest hours of dusk, as the purple and orange streaks settle across the window over to the bedsheets, the tiny particles of dust dancing in the subtle rays of the twilight sun. Eliott takes a deep breath, the same technique his mother had taught him when he was a mere child and although it doesn’t slow the frantic rhythm of the blood pumping in his veins, it soothes a little the stiffness on his forehead.

His double sized bed is suddenly too large and he feels minuscule in it, a grain of sand in the sea of the mattress. He draws his knees to the chest, curling into a fetus, aware that he is alone in the vastness of time and space. After all, all humans are born in solitude and they all die in that same loneliness.

The subdued sound of glass shattering on porcelain tiles perches on Eliott’s wandering attention and the brunet slips into the sports hoodie forgotten on the floor. He sprints, bare feet, not caring if he would catch a cold or upset his stomach later, to the kitchen, guided by the unusual scent of cocoa mixed with ginger, a hint of saffron and pungent nutmeg. Lucas is standing by the stove, bare foot as well, his hips swaying in the same pace as his hands scooped what seemed to be scrambled eggs to two plates on the side. The broken egg shells with remnants of raw yolk and the dollops of fresh cream in the counter are a complete cacophony. A beautiful mess, Eliott thinks, just like his boyfriend’s pajamas with miniature Pomeranian dogs in them (he has never seen those before though).

Lucas is not surprised when a pair of hands circle his waist, resting on top of his navel as they draw him closer to his partner, lower back to defined abs, shoulder blades to ribcage. The taller boy places a chaste kiss on the exposed nape, licking the tiny mole that probably only he knew it was there.

‘I am sorry.’ The patch of skin turns into a light shade of crimson and he is proud of it.

‘I made dinner.’ Lucas switches off the electric hob and leans further into the caress. ‘You were sleeping as usual so I didn’t want to bother you. I found this recipe on the drawer. But I’m tired.’

‘I’m awake now, I can do it.’ He presses his nose into the unruly chestnut hair in front of him, the blurred scent of cotton flower and limestone soil caught by his nostrils.

‘It’s not that. I’m tired.’ Lucas turns around and he tiptoes to Eliott’s lips, kissing him with staggering abandon.

The older boy loses balance and he almost falls, dragging both their bodies backward until they hit the silver fridge, a couple of magnets knocked over together with the timetables, the piano sheets and the myriad of racoons and hedgehogs held by them. Eliott is being dominated by the sheer desire of the kiss, of the bites on his lower lip that makes him concede access, a tongue pushing in and further inside, desperate for more contact, skin on skin, flesh on flesh, as the younger man’s hand travel down his sternum to the waistband of his underwear.

‘Wait,’ he tries to detach from the coercive restraint suffocating him, so different from how they were, ‘wait, Lucas.’

It takes more than a second for the veil of lust to dissipate from his partner’s eyes, pupils dilated and hungry, but once both their vision clear, a wave of fear crashes on Eliott’s nerves cutting the synapses in his brain. It’s a stormy tide against a fragile cliff and now it floods him with jittery anxiety on his limbs and panic on his gut. It’s the irises, Eliott shakes his head lightly, the voice of the void catching on him once again.

One eye amber, almost inscribed in gold and the other green, of a forest, a tropical thicket of lime and sage.

_Where is your ocean, Eliott?_

‘You’re not Lucas. My Lucas.’

The younger man laughs, loud but also tame, almost humane. A smirk quirks on the corners of his mouth as he traps the half-naked body in front of him with his gaze, a shackle of nothing but thin air that bounds tighter than anything else.

‘Tell me,’ he licks his lip, tasting the vestiges of saliva, ‘how many Lucas are in this universe?’

There is silence ricocheting in the kitchen walls, except for the drops of water from the badly turned tap, each one hitting the stainless steel sink with the same dulcimer quality to them as the spilled coffee.

‘One? A thousand? A million?’

‘Plenty.’ It is a murmur the syllables that escape his sore throat.

‘Plenty.’ This Lucas repeats and nods. He kicks the floor, indifferent to pain, though the almost imperceptible recoiling of the taller man, thinking the gesture was for him, elicits a cursing _putain_ under his breath. ‘I’m tired. I’m so tired. So, so tired. I’m so tired of _you_ , Eliott.’

And he leaves, as swiftly as the other Lucas had done, his steps mute as if he didn’t walk but levitated per magic. And in the same witchcraft, Eliott is pulled by the clutches of gravity, his back sliding down the cooler and then the freezer doors, until he sits by the floor. He doesn’t know if he sits or if he is lost amidst the particles and atoms of the air, waiting to be taken by them in their evanescence so when his muscles stop quivering, from the cold and the heat, the miserable moths in his intestines and the cacti ramifying from his lungs, he will be nothing.

Nothing.

 

 

‘Eliott?’

He hardly shifts under the duvet when his name is called, not feathers and wool hoovering over his silhouette but a mountain of frigid volcanic ash, basalt and olivine crystals, pressing down with the pressure from nature, to keep him dormant instead of erupting in multicolored ribbons.

‘Wake up Eliott.’

He shudders as he feels the warmth of another body sinking in the mattress, closer to him, a hand brushing away a few nutty strands, comprising the whole spectrum of mahogany and bronze, away from his forehead. It is so gentle the touch he wants to flee from its deceptive tenderness but also lose himself in it, liberated from all boundaries, in the tickling pulse from the fingertips that now traces the solitary tear streaming down his cheek. It falls wet on his lips, a sodden saltiness, and he wonders if the other person can discern it too.

‘Come back Eliott. I am here. You are not alone.’

He knows this voice, this bridge between a tenor and a bass, the perfect balance of pitch and the nasal, velvety undertones masked behind the sunny timbre of the keys of a piano. The piano that he played but pretended he couldn’t, besides the Star Wars theme and _I Love You_. Eliott wants to stay in this drowsy humor just an infinitesimally second longer so that he keeps chanting his name like the hymns he sings when he goes to church.

‘Eliott–’

‘One more time.’

‘Hmm?’

‘My name,’ the pillow swallows his words, ‘call me again.’

‘Eliott,’ Lucas whispers the melodic string right next to his ears, the serene puffs of air tickling the cartilage there, ‘Eliott, Eliott, Eliott,’ and he continues to lay the path of the lighthouse so the older boy won’t be lost on the tempestuous seas, ‘Eliott, Eliott.’

‘Lucas,’ he takes a deep breath, the fifth, sixth time, he had lost count already, of that night, if time had travelled forward at all instead of stalling to keep company with the new moon, but the inhalation is seasoned with a dash of tenacity and he turns, slowly, the weight of the planet still heavy on his fragile frame, his eyes catching sight of the notch between the collar bones, ‘which Lucas are you?’

‘Eliott–’

‘Please answer me.’ He doesn’t need to raise his gaze to envision the furrowed brows on the other boy’s face, the journey to annoyance and finally settling with disappointment.

_What was there to be proud of?_

‘Oh Eliott,’ Lucas brings his lips to the tip of his boyfriend’s nose, just as he had done the first time they had lain together in the Saturday morning after that fateful _Polaris_ night, ‘Lucas no. 1 will hug you now until you tell him what is wrong,’ any difference in height is forgiven and forgotten, and azure eyes meet with Eliott’s pair of sunflowers, an outer rim of jade green surrounding the canary gold accents before he sees himself reflected in the dark pupils, ‘Lucas no. 63 is waiting for Eliott no. 5 to hold his hand as they prepare to bungee jump in the next second. Lucas no. 179 has just seen a very handsome chocolatier from the window of a Swiss café. They don’t know each other but guess what? He can read the name _Eliott_ sewn in his apron.’ He presses their foreheads together, like they always did when words were insufficient for all they wanted to say and even more, ‘Lucas no. 7770 and Eliott no. 3678 are making love by a secret beach in Bali.’

‘The same very muscular Lucas who surfed that huge wave?’

‘Another one.’ They both smile, uninhibited, mimicking each other. ‘I am all Lucases and you all Eliotts in this universe. There isn’t one Lucas that is not drawn to you and no Eliott that isn’t equally smitten by my charms.’

‘Your charms?’

‘I have them, don’t I?’ He feigns the bewildered indignation, pretending to pull away his embrace.

‘You do.’ Eliott nudges closer until the gap between their bodies is replaced by two silhouettes mingled in a maze of tangled limbs, interlaced fingers and lips on lips, like two pieces of a puzzle that fit to perfection. ‘You really do.’ The aroma of the minty shampoo is strong but not too piquant and it can’t mask the scent of spring rain that he almost tastes on Lucas’ supple skin.

His Lucas. Let it be his Lucas.

‘Did you have a nightmare?’ He nods. ‘Do you want to talk about it?’

‘Yes.’ His fingertips doodle serpentine lines on Lucas’ wrist. ‘But not now.’

‘One minute later.’

‘Two minutes later.’

‘What do you want to do in this next minute then?’

Eliott opens his mouth but shuts it immediately, the grin on the younger man’s face telling him exactly that he too was thinking of the same thing. ‘I want to kiss you.’

**Author's Note:**

> I've experienced having dreams inside of dreams, so you wake up thinking that's your reality only to realize you're still within a dream. It's very scary to be honest, especially when those were nightmares.


End file.
